Italian police have arrested the captain and a crew member of a migrant boat that capsized over the weekend off Libya, as the UN put the death toll at 800.
The Tunisian captain and a Syrian crewmember of the boat were taken from a group of 27 haggard survivors who arrived in the Sicilian port of Catania on Monday evening, according to Italian officials.
Assistant Prosecutor Rocco Liguori said the two men were charged with illegal immigration, and the captain was charged with reckless multiple homicide in relation to the sinking, according to the Associated Press.
The arrests came as the United Nations refugee agency confirmed that 800 migrants died in what has been described as the worst Mediterranean boat disaster in recent times.
“We can say that 800 are dead,” said Carlotta Sami, spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Italy on Tuesday.
Representatives from the UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said they had interviewed the majority of 27 survivors, who described the moment the trawler carrying them capsized after a Portuguese merchant ship approached the vessel, causing a stampede.
One other survivor was taken to hospital in Catania, on Sicily’s east coast.
“There were a little over 800 people on board, including children aged between 10 and 12. There were Syrians, about 150 Eritreans, Somalians… They had left Tripoli at about 8 am on Saturday,” Sami said.
The survivors hailed from Mali, Gambia, Senegal, Somalia, Eritrea and Bangladesh, she added, and all had been taken to nearby holding centres.
source:Punchng
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